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What do women want? The same thing men were promised in the Declaration of Independence: happiness, or at least the freedom to pursue it. For women, though, pursuing happiness is a complicated endeavor, and if you head out into America and talk to women one-on-one, as Jill Filipovic has done, you'll see that happiness is indelibly shaped by the constraints of gender, the expectations of feminine sacrifice, and the myriad ways that womanhood itself differs along lines of race, class, location, and identity. In The H-Spot, Filipovic argues that the main obstacle standing in-between women and happiness is a rigged system. In this world of unfinished feminism, men have long been able to "have it all" because of free female labor, while the bar of achievement for women has only gotten higher. Never before have women at every economic level had to work so much (whether it's to be an accomplished white-collar employee or just make ends meet). Never before have the standards of feminine perfection been so high. And never before have the requirements for being a "good mother" been so extreme. If our laws and policies made women's happiness and fulfillment a goal in and of itself, Filipovic contends, many of our country's most contentious political issues--from reproductive rights to equal pay to welfare spending--would swiftly be resolved. Filipovic argues that it is more important than ever to prioritize women's happiness-and that doing so will make men's lives better, too. Here, she provides an outline for a feminist movement we all need and a blueprint for how policy, laws, and society can deliver on the promise of the pursuit of happiness for all.… (more)
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And then there’s motherhood: borrowing from Adrienne Rich, Filipovic reminds us that “mothering” is an ongoing action, and “fathering” is an emission, and that’s a big problem. Work as a source of positive identity is a goal: daughters of mothers who work for money are higher-achieving than daughters of mothers who don’t work outside the home, and their sons do more work at home, including childcare. Contrariwise, men whose wives stay at home are more likely to discriminate against female coworkers—Mike Pence to the contrary. Yet high-achieving men are much more likely to assume that their wives won’t work, whereas high-achieving women think that they’ll both work (and are attracted to men with similar ambitions to their own, setting them up for a big clash). Most such men ended up satisfied, while many of their female peers found themselves driven out of the workforce if they married and had children. The problems of poor working women are different and shameful for us as a nation, but also gendered and raced. Poor women lack respect, time, and child care along with money and good work, and these things reinforce each other and are used to blame women for their own situations.
I was randomly chosen through a Goodreads Giveaway to receive this book free from the publisher. Although encouraged, I was under no obligation to write a review. The opinions I have expressed are my own.
It's not bad, but if you've read any of the recent books about feminism as applied to people's lives, it probably won't tell you anything new.